


Red

by impudent_strumpet



Series: Before The Dark [3]
Category: Plague Tale: Innocence (Video Game)
Genre: Adulthood, Bad Fic, Beds, Blood, Early Mornings, Family Issues, Father-Daughter Relationship, Female Characters, Female-Centric, Flowering, For this I mean, Girlhood, Growing Up, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Introspection, Lion also gets some spotlight for once, Marriage, Meh, Menstruation, Mild Blood, Mornings, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Not my best, Not the game itself, One Shot, Other, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Pre-Canon, Preteen, Protectiveness, Puberty, Random & Short, Red (Color), Short, Short One Shot, Spoiler alert there, no gore though, some light fluff, womanhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 19:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19933066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impudent_strumpet/pseuds/impudent_strumpet
Summary: A very important part of Amicia's adolescence unfolds.





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> Probably not my best fic for this game. It just popped into my head and I wrote it...I also briefly referenced it in "Our New Home" and "The Widow's Walk." I've heard that, when writing dialogue for a character, once you can picture their voice saying it, then you know you've written them in character and this is what I got for Béatrice and Amicia.
> 
> Also Robert is fiercely protective of his little girl. That might be something I affectionately poke fun at in future fics XD

"Aaaahhh...!"  
  
It had been only a short scream, more out of surprise than fear, that sounded from the bedroom of the eldest de Rune child, a girl of twelve, early that morning. It was before anyone else was awake and before Amicia herself usually would awaken.  
  
But it had gotten Lion barking, and had been enough for Knight de Rune — who had always slept lightly — to burst through the door, his sword drawn.  
  
"Amicia! What is it?!"  
  
There, to both his relief and confusion, he found only his daughter sitting up in her bed, her hair disheveled and her face red as she looked at him nervously.  
  
"Father, I'm bleeding."  
  
"Where? What happened?"  
  
Amicia froze for a moment, then moved aside a bit on the bed and pushed the covers back. Her father walked up to her bedside to see a crimson stain on the sheet beside his daughter.  
  
"Wait here. I'm going to tell your mother."  
  
"What? But she won't—" Amicia started, but her father had already left.  
  
"What's happening?" Amicia heard her mother's voice, sounding strangely concerned, from the hallway, practically for the first time since her little brother had been born. The young noblewoman strained to hear the rest of what her parents were saying, but could not.  
  
Then her mother came in.  
  
"Mother? What is this?" Amicia asked shyly.  
  
"It's alright, Amicia." Béatrice sat on the edge of Amicia's bed. "You are not sick or wounded, if that is what you were suspecting. You've just flowered for the first time."  
  
"Oh..." Amicia said, then looked up at her mother. "Who is looking after Hugo right now?"  
  
"Your brother is still asleep, but your father is in there with him," Béatrice answered. "I told him this would only take a moment. The same happens during childbirth. Men are not allowed in the birthing room until the baby is born."  
  
Amicia looked down at the bed sheet.  
  
"What is it, my love? What are you thinking of?" came Béatrice's voice.  
  
"Does this mean I have to be married, now that I can have children?" Amicia asked quietly.  
  
"What? No. You are still too young," Béatrice reassured her. "That will wait for a few more years. For now you will bleed for seven days each month. Your stomach may hurt and swell, perhaps you will feel choleric, but that is normal." She stood. "I shall have to get you a menstrual rag and then return to your brother before he awakes."  
  
_Of course_ , Amicia thought. After her mother left the room, Amicia pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin on top of them, uncomfortably aware of the wet stain on the back of her nightgown, along with the one on her bed.  
  
So was Lion, apparently, as he jumped up onto her bed.  
  
"Lion, what have I said about that?" Amicia chided him, ruffling his fur. Then he started to sniff the bed sheet. "Lion, no..."  
  
Béatrice reappeared then and gave Amicia a menstrual rag. "There you are."  
  
"Thank you," Amicia said.  
  
"You're welcome," Béatrice replied before returning to her other child's room.  
  
That was when Amicia saw her father, just outside the room, frown at his wife as she passed. Amicia leaned across her bed for a closer look, to be sure, but she definitely had seen it. For two years Hugo's sickness had isolated both the boy and his mother from Robert and Amicia. The young noblewoman wondered if this had created tension between her parents. She wondered about Hugo, by himself in his room all the time with no company but their mother. Would she ever be able to cure him? Amicia wondered, even, if her mother missed her. Her father had insisted that her mother still loved her, and Amicia wanted to believe him, but sometimes she just found it so hard. She had even hidden away the tablecloth that her mother had made for her when she was a little girl, so as not to remind her of her mother's distance. It had been ivory, she remembered, patterned in red with the family coat of arms.   
  
Red like the blood on her sheet. Red like the blood in Hugo's veins, that held that strange disease.

**Author's Note:**

> *whispers* Red like her future girlfriend's hair XD


End file.
